De Villiers smashes Ganguly’s ODI record

South Africa superstar AB de Villiers has one again etched his name into the ODI record books, as he becomes the fastest man to score 9000 ODI runs.

De Villiers reached the milestone with a cracking pull shot off Lockie Ferguson shortly after arriving at the crease during the third ODI match against New Zealand in Wellington.

The 33-year-old has achieved this feat in just 205 innings, and in doing so, also knocked off former India captain Saurav Ganguly‘s name from the ODI records book, who previously took 228 innings to complete the milestone.

De Villers is the 18th ODI batsmen and only the second Proteas’ player — just behind Jacque Kallis — who have completed 9000 ODI career runs. But he has the highest average of 53.86 among all and also boasts an incredible strike rate of 99.94.

Current India skipper Virat Kohli has a staggering ODI runs tally of 7,755 runs from 171 innings, needing just 245 runs in his next 10 outings to the middle to become the fastest man to 8000 runs — a record which is also held by AB de Villiers.

Kohli has rewritten every ‘fastest to’ record from 1000 runs onwards as his career forged ahead, only to see the other South Africa International Hashim Amla erase his name each and every time.

Hashim Amla currently holds the record of fastest batsman to 2000,3000,4000, 5000 and 6000 runs and is on his way to shatter 7000 ODI runs record.